Saturday, March 04, 2006

Everything you have read about the America's Cup ain't exactly true. Some of the myths around the Cup races in recent years in Australia and New Zealand are debunked in this article by Peter Ballard in which he proves conclusively that the America's Cup stories are confused, contradictory, and unbelievable.

For example ...

The identity of the supposed owner of the (Australian) yacht is a mystery. The books give his name variously as "Alan Bond" or "Bondy". In my research, the only person I could find of either name was an inmate of Perth Gaol in 1991. It is not possible that this felon could have once been a yacht-owning multi-millionaire.

In both myths the opposing skipper is called Dennis Conner. Since it is absurd to suggest that the Americans would allow the same skipper to lose the Cup twice, it is clear that the New Zealand legend is simply an adaptation of the Australian myth.

Black Magic also has divine assistance, with the only yacht to defeat it being struck in half and sinking in three minutes. Of course this incident is not historical (as if a multi-million dollar yacht would break in half and sink without even colliding into anything).

What's going on here? What is this guy smoking?

From what I can gather, Ballard is attempting to bolster his defense of the credibility of myths in the Bible by demonstrating that just because certain other accounts are implausible and inconsistent it doesn't necessarily prove that the underlying stories are untrue.

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